


love in itself

by TwoMenAndAGuava (drakkynfyre47)



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-04 18:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12174003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakkynfyre47/pseuds/TwoMenAndAGuava
Summary: Sinclair and Garibaldi, saving each other.





	love in itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Muccamukk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/gifts).



> I was trying to write this for fandomgiftbox, but didn't get it finished on time.

**i.**

After the Battle of the Line, after the endless questioning and counselling, Sinclair was given leave. He wandered around the Earth-Mars-Moon area for a while, and it was on Mars that he met Michael Garibaldi. The man had a strange sort of charm about him, a kind of blue-collar appeal that said “I understand you”. But he was, at the same time, the type of person you were always warned to stay away from. Rough, unkempt, a near-constant stench of alcohol permeating his clothes and hair and living quarters. 

For Sinclair, the charm was stronger than the revulsion. He spent a lot of time talking with Garibaldi, slowly prying the man out of his shell, sitting watching the people walk by. He learned about Lise, Michael’s girlfriend, about his job on Io, about his friend Frank. Michael never told Sinclair what had happened to the job on Io, what had happened to turn him to drink, and Sinclair never asked.

Once when Sinclair showed up at Garibaldi’s, the man was unconscious, passed out on his rickety table, an empty bottle at his feet and another in his hand. Instead of being disgusted, as he would have been a few months ago, it broke his heart. Gently, he picked the other man up, appalled at how thin he was, and carried him to the bed. Searching through the mess in the apartment, he poured the alcohol he could find down the sink, cleaned the floor as best as he could, and called Michael in sick for work the next day.

Sure, Garibaldi would be angry, but drying out for a day or two would be the best thing for him.

**ii.**

Babylon 5’s DownBelow was a filthy, stinking shithole of a place to live. But there were over a thousand people who did it, day after day. Garibaldi didn’t enjoy heading down there, especially after a big crime bust like the one last week. But he had to see his informant. Alone and out of uniform (but not unarmed; he wasn’t an idiot), he slid through the darkened corridors, padding carefully down into the bowels of the station.

He got the information he’d come for, and then his communicator beeped. He swore softly, but answered. Hurriedly, he thanked his agent and turned to go. In his rush to get back to the main part of the station, he bumped into a man that he and his men had roughed up in last week’s bust. The man called out, grabbed his arm, and socked him in the eye.

Michael gasped. He hadn’t been expecting to be hit so hard, or so suddenly. It knocked the wind out of him, and he struggled to orient himself. His communicator went off again, but he didn’t answer it, couldn’t answer it. He was too busy fending off the attackers, who had by now gone from one to five. Which meant that they could overpower him easily, holding him down and punching him, kicking him, while he lay there helpless. 

Dumb luck saved him. The transmit button on his communicator was depressed, allowing Sinclair to hear his security chief’s moans of pain and effort, to hear the sounds of the DownBelow and the people chanting for blood. Immediately, he dispatched a team to assist, and brought a dirty, battered, and bleeding Garibaldi back to C&C, relatively safe and sound.

**iii.**

Lise wasn’t dead. She was safe. _And married,_ said a small voice in his head. _Did you really expect her to wait for you, after what you did?_ Michael quashed that thought, but couldn’t quite smash the other one flat: _well, aren’t you going to do what you always do? Crawl right back into the bottle? “Drunk again, Uncle Mike?”_

“Stop, stop,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. It was tempting, so, so tempting to just give in and head to the Zocalo, to start drinking again and just never stop. But he couldn’t. He promised Jeff that he wouldn’t, and he refused to break his word. Not with Jeff, never with Jeff. He loved Lise still, had never stopped loving her, and he loved Jeff. It was a different love, but just as strong, just as powerful. And if he couldn’t call Lise to help him now, then it would have to be Jeff. He tapped a button on his screen. “Jeff?” he whispered. “Jeff, I need help.”

Ten minutes later Sinclair was in his quarters, holding him close as he wept. He hadn’t been expecting to break down like this, but if there was one person on this station he would let see him so vulnerable, it was Jeff. Oddly enough, he felt safe there, leaning into Jeff’s solid warmth, in a way he hadn’t felt safe since… Hell, since Mars, with Lise, while he was still sober. He clung to his friend, tears running down his face as sobs wracked his body, feeling oddly better for this release. “Thanks, Jeff.”

Sinclair rubbed a hand over his friend’s hair. “Any time, Mike. Always.”

**iv.**

Jeff’s white-knuckled grip on the railing was the only sign of his tension. He was tightly controlled as always, but he knew that to Garibaldi he was an open book. He was no diplomat, always preferring the clarity of flight to the intrigue of the negotiating table. But as the commander of Babylon 5, he needed to be versatile.

Michael bumped his shoulder into Jeff’s. He knew that sometimes when Sinclair got like this, all wrapped up in his own head, he needed someone to remind him to stay grounded. “You sure you don’t want me to take this one?”

“Very sure,” Sinclair said, the question having teased a small smile out of him. “You’d just screw it up worse than I could - and that’s saying something!” He clapped Garibaldi on the back, squared his shoulders, and headed towards the negotiating table.

**v.**

Love in itself is never enough. 

Sinclair reminded himself of this fact over and over, whether he was feeling guilty for not being with Catherine, for being aromantic, for not returning Michael’s feelings in the same way.

When he got like this, spiralling downward, he often showed up at Catherine’s door if she was around, and Michael’s when she wasn’t. His queerplatonic partnership with Catherine involved a lot of her head on his shoulder, her arm around his waist, comforting him. His relationship with Michael involved a lot of hot, sweaty sex. Both were good for getting his mind off things, and right now he needed a distraction.

So he knocked on Garibaldi’s door, and pressed him against the wall in a deep kiss, and let his best friend take care of him.


End file.
